Intrigued by the traditional music scene happening on Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at The American Legion in Nashville, Chattanooga-born Hannah Juanita decided to check it out for herself in 2018. Her first visit there was as a punter and two-stepper, but a few years later, she was fronting bands in Nashville and working on her debut album, HARDLINER. That album was released in 2021, and since then, Juanita has gone from strength to strength as a performer and recording artist. Supporting like-minded artists Kaitlin Butts and Jesse Daniel has brought her to the attention of a wider audience outside Nashville. After touring over the past two years, she booked recording time at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville, where she, her producer Mose Wilson, and a host of big hitter session players recorded her second album, TENNESSEE SONGBIRD. It’s a full-on and joy-filled collection of traditional country songs that cements Juanita’s growing reputation as another strong-willed woman making music on her terms and having a blast doing so. ‘That’s the beauty of Nashville; you have the best of the best players here, and I think I was a good enough singer to pull it off,’ she told Lonesome Highway when we recently spoke with her.
Growing up in Chattanooga, was Nashville on your radar music-wise?
I wasn’t close to the Nashville music scene growing up at all. Nashville was very different back then, and I never thought I would ever live there, even though it was only two hours away from where I lived in Chattanooga. More people are doing real country music in Nashville now than when I was growing up.
I understand that you sang in church as a child. Had you ambitions of a music career then?
I was raised Southern Baptist and was a harmony singer in a youth band, and a music career didn’t seem like an option back then. I was raised to go to college and get a job. My dad wanted me to be a pharmacist, and I used to say, ‘Dad, can you really see me working at Walgreens?’ Things have changed so much since then, with social media and so many independent and DIY artists. It is so much more accessible now.
When did you develop an interest in songwriting?
I remember when I was younger than ten, I wrote a song with the lyrics ‘I love you like a hurricane’ or something like that (laughs). I was writing songs when I was young, but not seriously.
Your debut album, HARDLINER, was written while you were living in Washington State. Several songs on the album depict an angry or frustrated person.
That period was a time when I was trying to figure out what I wanted in life. I had bought land with my ex and a couple of friends in Washington State and my ex was away a lot on tour, working with a circus for weeks at a time, and I would be alone in a cabin, miserable and lonely. That is when I started writing a lot. I was by myself at night by candlelight; we didn’t have electricity, and I was sad and angry and would sit by the fire and write. So, many of the songs on HARDLINER are inspired by that period.
Was the move to Nashville a calculated one to follow a professional music career, and what part did Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at The American Legion have in that regard?
It was not a calculated move at all. When I went back to the South, it was to Ashville, North Carolina; I then went back out West to work a harvest season. Nothing was tying me down to Ashville, so on the way back South in late 2018; I just thought I should stop in Nashville on a Tuesday night to go to Honky Tonk Tuesday at the American Legion. I sought out The Legion because I had been a fan of old-time country music for years and was singing it on Instagram. I knew that people were playing this music live and two-stepping at The Legion, and it sounded like fun. I wanted to go and hang out there. I met a friend of a friend there who introduced me to a whole bunch of people; we hung out all night and went to Santa’s Pub after The Legion. I probably made more friends that one night than I had living in Ashville for six months. I went back to Chattanooga for two weeks at Christmas and moved to Nashville on New Year’s Eve. It just felt right, everything seemed to fall into place, and I’ve stayed here since then.
Having seen you perform a number of times, I’m struck by how much you have progressed in a relatively short time, both in your live shows and recordings.
I feel really great at the moment. I had toured for a year and a half with my first record, HARDLINER and performed in different situations, I play with Mose Wilson as a duo sometimes and also with a full band. I had only been performing for six months, mostly as a fireside singer, up to the time I came to Nashville. I had no experience fronting a band, so I have grown a lot in the past five years. That’s the beauty of Nashville; you have the best of the best players here, and I think I was a good enough singer to pull it off. I’ve also really dug in in terms of my songwriting, I wanted to write songs that I was proud of. It’s been a journey, and I feel good about it.
HARDLINER was the title of your debut album. It’s also featured in the name of your band and the opening track, Hardliner Blues, on your new album, TENNESSEE SONGBIRD. Is ‘hardliner’ an accurate description of yourself?
I reckon it is. Mose Wilson actually wrote that song, Hardliner Blues. It’s one of the songs I didn’t write on the record. I like the nod to my first record with that song, and the moniker, hardliner, is sticking.
TENNESSEE SONGBIRD is very much a ‘happy’ record, upbeat and lots of fun. The duet with Riley Downing of The Deslondes, Granny’s Cutlass Supreme, is a case in point. His whisky-soaked voice works so well with your sweet, high-pitched vocal.
I can’t tell you why, but I heard Riley on that song right from the beginning. He’s a buddy of mine, and The Deslondes were in Nashville working on a record at The Bomb Shelter, where I recorded the new album. Everything was finished on my record, and that song was already recorded. I sent it to him to add his vocal; it was the last thing we did on the recording.
Your grandmother inspired that song.
I was writing for a project I was hired to do with others that aligned with Open Table, an organisational resource for homeless people in Nashville. We were making a record that could sell in the street, similar to selling newspapers. The producer for the record gave us a list of hooks and prompts for the songs; one was Grandma’s Cutlass Supreme. I started writing Granny’s Cutlass Supreme from that prompt and brought it to the other guys, and we finished writing the song that night. My grandmother drove a lavender Lincoln town car with a white leather interior and was always dolled up. I love how the song turned out about an empowered older woman who, some might say, is past her prime. She knows what life is about and has it all figured out, and I liked that image of a strong older woman doing her own thing. It’s a fun and groovy song.
Would you consider recording a duets album in the future?
Mose Wilson and I talk about that all the time. We have a studio date coming up, and we may work on that, but Mose is also working on his own second record now, so he’ll want to finish that first. We tour a lot together, so it would be something worth doing together.
The title track, Tennessee Songbird, is autobiographical but also has a deeper meaning.
It has. It’s about me but also about how I feel about the music industry, country living, and how country music is in some people’s blood, and it’s what they have to do.
The players on the album read like ‘who’s who’ of Nashville, big hitters with Chris Scruggs, Dennis Crouch, Bruce Bouton, Micah Hulscher, Billy Contreras, and Fred Eltringham, all credited, alongside Mose Wilson, who also produced the album. How was the recording structured at The Bomb Shelter Studio in Nashville?
We cut the record live with the band, the rhythm section, bass and drums, acoustic guitar, keys, pedal steel, and accordion; all of that was cut live in one day. There was a scheduling conflict; we had two days to do the bones of everything, but we ended up doing it all in one long day. Mose and I had done a lot of prep work and knew what we wanted. We had already met with the players, and they knew what we wanted. So, we got the foundation of every song laid that day and went from there.
You’ve already been busy touring this year. What plans do you have to tour the new album?
I was out for two and a half months last year straight. We are just back from a month-long tour, and I’m about to go to Minnesota and then to New York for Honky Tonkin’ in Queens and I have several shows in Nashville during AmericanaFest, including my album debut show at Cannery Row.
You’ve joined the elite company of women who have recorded great country albums this year alongside Wonder Women of Country, Sierra Ferrell, Emily Nenni, Sarah Gayle Meech, Kiely Connell, Kelsey Waldon, Kayla Ray, Eliza Thorn, Kaitlin Butts, and India Ramey. It seems like a concerted movement by a bunch of talented artists leading a charge.
More and more women are coming out and playing and recording this music. I find that the community of women here is super supportive, though I’m not sure that I’d call it a movement. The audiences are calling out for more women, and the industry certainly is taking notice. It’s a case of ‘women are here too.’
Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Starla Little